At its June 24 meeting in Ely, the St. Louis County Board passed Commissioner Keith Nelson’s resolution opposing a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) on the effects of sulfide-ore mining in the watershed of the Boundary Waters.

This is consistent with usual practice: the mining companies and their politicians state that our environmental laws will protect us from the pollution that accompanies sulfide-ore mining, while doing everything they can think of to make sure the laws will not be applied or enforced. The resolution falsely asserts that a PEIS would be “duplicative.” In fact, no environmental impact statement has been prepared on sulfide-ore mining in the Superior National Forest north of the Laurentian Divide. Under the National Environmental Policy Act, preparing a PEIS is the first step that government agencies must take when considering cumulative or connected actions that may have an impact on federal lands. Nine (by my count) sulfide-ore mines and their infrastructure that would sprawl across the Superior National Forest southeast of Ely would unquestionably be cumulative and connected. The PEIS has been requested by two Minnesota Ojibway bands, more than 50 scientists, and Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness with its thousands of supporters. The Superior National Forest, including the Boundary Waters, is a national treasure and the driver of Ely’s sustainable economy. Finding out ahead of time how an industrial mining district would affect the land and water in the forest would seem to be the least that we can do.

Nelson ignored the concerns of area business people, workers, retirees, and seasonal home owners who spoke in opposition to the resolution and in support of a PEIS to assess the sulfide-ore mining threat. Instead, he purveyed hypocrisy and misrepresentations. He asserted that lawyers representing Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness and others were making money from environmental work that would, in his words, “make Microsoft look like a Kool-Aid stand.” In fact, the law firm representing NMW is working without charge.

I can say without fear of contradiction that Twin Metals’ lawyers are not working for free. People testified in opposition to the motion out of concern for their livelihoods and the Ely community. According to this newspaper, Nelson has called a PEIS “another stall tactic or delay tactic that is being used by individuals as they assault the middle-class communities that I serve.” The actual assault, of course, is that undertaken by the mining companies on the land and water that support our lives and our community.

Finally, to all those who laughed when I testified on June 24 that Ely is one of the most prosperous communities in northeastern Minnesota, please see Marshall Helmberger’s article in the March 14, 2014, edition of this newspaper.

Reid Carron

Morse Twp., Minn.